For August, I’ll introduce Down at the Casino, which is about gambling, unsurprisingly.
My own experience of gambling is the few years I spent in Aberdeen working for one of the big bingo companies. I worked almost everywhere in the hall from the reception desk to being on the floor checking claims.
It wasn’t a bad place to work in my late teens and early twenties. There was a lot of friendship, humour, gossip and everything else you’d expect in a large staff team. We always had a laugh with the customers as well. It’s a bit of a cliché to say the experience was grounding, but that’s the kind of phrase that comes to mind.
The lack of natural light (like casinos, bingo halls don’t have windows) and the constant fog of cigarette smoke weren’t so pleasant. But what made me even more uncomfortable was that people were clearly spending money they didn’t have there, especially on the fruit machines.
All the machines were squashed into one small corner of the bingo hall, with glass swing doors to stop the noise of the machines interfering with the bingo games. Still, every customer had to walk through the machines on their way into the main hall.
Some customers didn’t make it past the machines, as they hadn’t come for the bingo. On more than one occasion, while sitting at the front desk, I overheard people in tears on the phone pleading with someone to come and pick them up as they’d put everything into the machines. A colleague told me that, for the space and staff they took up, the slot machines made up a disproportionate amount of the hall’s revenue.
The song partly reflects the experience of working in the bingo, and it also pieces together a few things I heard from friends over the years about casinos. This is where the serious gambling takes place and, to use gambling parlance, the stakes are even higher. I don’t think I’ve ever set foot in one myself, come to think of it.
What triggered me to write the song was that the chords and melody I’d initially written reminded me a little of something Jacques Brel might have sung. I love Jacques Brel, and he’s had a big influence on my own songwriting, but I don’t know any French. Unless I have a translation, I have to imagine what he’s singing about.
So, when I learned that his song Les jardines du casino wasn’t about an actual casino, I was left thinking it would have been a great subject for a Brel song. In a way, then, Down at the Casino is my attempt at writing the song I wanted him to have written.
On that note, I think there’s something to be said for listening to songs in a language you don’t understand. Although you might miss out in some ways, especially if the lyrics are as great as Jacques Brel’s, you also gain in that you can add your own meaning to what you’re hearing.
Anyway, here’s Down at the Casino, and check out this review of Virtual Virgins by Rosy Overdrive, who identifies DAtC as a highlight of the record.